Google and Salesforce Join to Fight Microsoft — Google and Salesforce.com, two of Microsoft's most conspicuous rivals, are expanding a 10-month-old collaboration in an effort to accelerate their sales of customer management and office software to businesses.

Google, Salesforce link up for business apps — It has hardly been a well-kept secret. Now, Salesforce.com and Google have made it official: they're linking up to offer Google Apps integrated with Salesforce.com's CRM (customer relationship management) applications.

Pageflakes Acquired By Live Universe — Pageflakes, an Ajax home page service that originally launched in Germany in late 2005, has been acquired by Los Angeles based Live Universe, sources tell us. The deal has not yet been announced, and both Live Universe and Pageflakes refuse to comment.

Clock Ticking On Pageflakes? — Personalized web page startup Pageflakes has run into trouble and is desperately seeking a buyer, according to our sources. The company is rumored to be running low on cash and will join the dot.gone club unless it can find last-minute buyers.

Twitter and inadequacy (er, the great friend divide) — I'm tracking the new “friend divide.” What is it? — Well, compare your experiences on a number of services when you only have one friend vs., say, 500. Look at Upcoming.org. Have only one friend? It really is empty looking and there's not much value.

‘OpenMac’ Promises $399 Headless Mac... But Not From Apple — A company called Psystar has started advertising a $399 computer called “OpenMac” which claims to be a Leopard compatible Mac built from standard PC-parts. For $399, you get a tower computer with the following specs: — 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo

Storage Space, The Final Frontier — Developers who have found our cloud computing model attractive have been asking us to be a little bit more open about what we are planning to do in the future. To date we've simply announced new additions to the Amazon Web Services lineup …

Ashley Highfield to leave BBC for Project Kangaroo — Ashley Highfield, the BBC's most senior technology executive, is leaving after eight years to launch the broadband TV service being developed as a joint venture between the corporation, ITV and Channel 4.

What's interesting is what we say it is. Really? — With the annual Web 2.0 conference only a week away, we're about to get bombarded with the latest avalanche of marketing hype about technologies that are supposed to change our lives. And if past is prologue, I'm quite sure …

The Incredibly Shrinking Music Biz — EMI Shutting Down Some Asian Offices — EMI, one of the global music majors, is shutting down some of its offices in Asia. Offices in Thailand and Singapore have already been shuttered, while regional headquarters in Hong King are ready for the grim reaper, Music 2.0 reports.